Forces involved in the Campaign:

Loyalists Involved In The Conflict

Traitors Involved In The Conflict

Campaign Summary

As the Omega-Celia conflict waned and forces retreated or stormed forth from their respective battles, the armies of both traitors and loyalists spread out again to either retreat and entrench or push forward with a victorious momentum.

This was how the Heresy came to the Johannes-Walker System. Given that the traitors fared worse than their loyalist brethren, it was Traitor forces falling back to the predominantly Traitor Mechaniccum held sector. Given how much the Smirinoff Oligarchy relied upon Mechanicum expertise to keep their Magna-Distillerys functioning at full capacity, when half of Mars sided with Kelbor-Hal, they opted to throw their lot in with the separatists.

After falling from the warp the Traitor forces moved straight for Walker’s Gambit, to lick their wounds and requisition what meagre warstocks the Oligarchy held nominally for self defence. The traitor leadership opted for the Magna-Distillery Omicron-38a as their head of operations, given its large barley and wheat fields that could be turned into impromptu landing pads and marshalling grounds for their forces.

The traitor forces wasted no time in preparing Omicron-38a for defence from any possible loyalist reprisals. This was to prove prudent as within no more than a standard Terran month, reports of activity coming from the system’s Mandeville point started to filter in from picket ships left for just such a reason.

These lone picket ships quickly made haste to join the rest of the Traitor flotilla orbiting Prost.

The loyalists pressed straight forward into the system once their fleet had fully broken from the warp and mustered. Their fleet was at least half again as large as the ad-hoc collection of traitor vessels that were laying in wait around the dockyards of Prost.

The loyalists moved into the system at full flank-speed. Instead of stopping around Walker’s Gambit and launching a fully supported and staged planetfall they simply left their massive landing barques, mass conveyancers and smaller assorted Legion landing ships to affect the invasion. The rest of the fleet simply slingshotted around Walker’s Gambit and used the increased velocity to hasten toward Prost where they could force a decisive engagement with the traitor fleet.

It would be a fortnight or more before which ever victorious force would be able to return to from Prost. This meant the ground war on Walker’s Gambit, and more importantly on Magna-Distillery Omicron-38a would need to be quick, brutal and decisive as neither of the arrayed combatants could afford to hold up their returning fleets given the fluid nature of warfare within the sector at that moment.

Initial lance and bombardment strikes from the Legion ships upon Artois met with little success, although not a military installation, the Magna-Distillery was equipped with formidable voidshiels and a handful of gargantuan laser batteries that were more akin to mining devices than sub-orbital defense weaponry. This was due to the fact that while the Magna-Distilleries could move at an astonishing pace of one kilometre an hour. But if they were ever under threat from large falling debris they would not be able to get out of the way. Thus the large lasers were designed to shear chunks off of any falling meteorites or asteroids to lessen their impact, allowing the void shields to more easily take the brunt of the strikes. While these lasers where no true threat to the bombarding ships, they were powerful enough to cause strain on the ships void shields. The captains of these ships, given the relative lack of damage their bombardments were achieving on the Magna-Distillery, opted to retreat to a safe distance and act as surveillance for the ground forces.

The loyalists marshalled their forces a meagre dozen kilometres from the slowly retreating Magna-Distillery. While its rate of movement was quite low, it was enough that Loyalist staging grounds would be required to move each day lest they be of no use.

The attack on Magna-Distillery Omicron-38a begun on the morning following 48 hours of staging and mustering of the loyalist forces.

While the Magna-Distilleries where land based, moving cities, the bulk of ‘habitable’ areas where over 100 metres off the ground, giving their immense, crab like legs, plenty of room to manoeuvre over any low hillocks and terrain. For a normal Astartes and Imperial army planetfall this would of been quite easy to overcome, simply land on the areas of the Magna Distillery deemed safe from enemy combatants from orbital (or sub orbital) artillery. But due to the ad-hoc nature of the attack and lack of fleet support, teleportation chambers and large-scale drop-pod facilities their approach was going to have to be different.

Assault Marine squads where released by Thunderhawk passes on the outer crop areas of the massive construct, in an attempt to create safe landing points for Thunderhawks, Stormbirds and other imperial army fliers to drop more heavily armed and armoured forces. This for the first hours of the morning was met with little success as the crops and fields had been turned into intricate trench works by the traitor forces.

Limited Terminator forces were teleported in from the orbiting Legion ships, these with a heavier use of Assault Marines and close air supported allowed a few toe-holds to be gleaned on outer areas of the Magna-Distillery. It was from these toe-holds that finally armoured units where air-dropped and made available to broaden the landing areas so the Loyalists could finally reinforce enmasse and start to attempt push into the outer warehouse districts of the Magna-Distillery. It was from here that the battle was truly joined.

Thus is how the ground battles began for Omicron-38a.

Game 1: Invasion via Air-Lift

Game 1 will be fought at 3000 points full AOD a side.

Force Composition:

Each side may consist of up to 3 players. If the players on the same side all come from the same Legion they may, if they chose, consist of a single FOC. If not, they will need to each bring at least a legal Allied detachment, but may use up to a full Force-Org if points permit. If there is a single player on a team they have access to all the standard FoCs available to them for an Age of Darkness Battle. In regards to LoW limits, no matter the number of players on a side, they all count as a single army so may have a LoW up to750pts

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Mission: Control the Positions
Super simple as lets just roll some dice and have some fun.

The defender will place two objectives in their deployment zone that are at least 12” from their table edge and at least 8” apart. The Attacker goes first, the defender may elect to seize.

If at the end of the battle the Defender holds both objectives it is a Major Victory for the Defender.

If at the end of any battle round the Attacker holds both of these objectives uncontested, the game is over and is a Major Victory for the Attackers.

If neither side holds any objectives by the end of the battle, it goes down to kill points and secondaries, the winner of this gains a Minor Victory for their side.

If both the Defender and Attacker each hold 1 objective at the end of the battle it is a Minor Victory for the Attacker.

Secondaries:
Slay the Warlord
The Price of Failure
First (full turn) Blood

Mission Special Rules:

Loyalists (Attackers):
Tenuous Foothold: Due to the height of the Magna-Distillery, to be able to get a toe-hold on its upper and combat capable surfaces, Loyalist forces relied heavily upon Assault Marines and Sub-Orbital craft to create safe landing zones so that their heavier support could be air-lifted in.

All units which have jump packs may be taken as non-compulsory Troop choices. Any unit with a Jump Pack (and attached characters with Jump Packs) or a Vehicle that can fly, may, if they chose to, be held in reserve and arrive turn. They must roll a 4+ for their reserves roll. If a unit with Jump Packs arrives turn 1 via Deep Stirke, they may also charge, but count as Disordered. The downside to this is, due to the securing of landing zones, forces heavier armour was slower to bring to bear. Any Heavy Support units, or units with the Tank (and anything tank like) must be held in Reserve and may enter as per normal Reserves rules.

Attackers may also not use fortifications.

Traitors (Defenders):
Prepared Positions: The Traitors made good use of their time preparing Omicron-38a. Fox holes, trenches and emplaced bunkers where dug and reinforced. Not only this, there was widespread use of rudimentary booby-traps across all fronts. While not normally enough to injure Astartes, it was enough to cause moving through open ground to be somewhat difficult.

All defending units count as having the Shrouded rule and being equipped with defensive grenades. They continue to have these benefits until they Attack or Move for any reason.

Battle Reports

(Press the CREATE button to lodge a single Battle report to represent an event, you can modify the number in the name only)